Sick and tired
by Linneagb
Summary: It's New year's Eve. And a big seizure doesn't exactly make the best ending to one year for seven year old Lucas. He then wants to stay up, there's only a little while left anyway. But Karen worries- even though Keith is trying to cheer them both up. Story written for Epilepsy awareness


**Hello everyone. This is my first try to a one-tree-hill-story. It might be slightly AU since I haven't even watched two seasons so far. But I had the idea and just had to write it.**

 **Little Lucas is portrayed by Iain Armitage. I have made a polyvore edit for him. You'll find it in the collection "Other stories" and you can find the link to the collection on my profile.**

 **Enjoy**

"It's okay Lucas."

Although, seeing the way Lucas laid on the floor. Every part of his body shaking and twitching of a seizure always made me feel nothing was okay.

"It's okay Karen."

Well wasn't I the luckiest person on earth who at least didn't have to be alone in this? Even though I couldn't quite believe what he said. Only not being all alone, even though I just couldn't appreciate right now- really did mean more than what I could say.

All three of us, myself, Lucas and Keith were down on bathroom floor. The difference between Keith and myself and Lucas were that I and Keith were upright.

"It's okay Lucas. It'll stop soon."

As well as I could with his head bobbing back and forth towards the folded towel I had laid between his head and the hard floor I ran a hand over my son's forehead and hair. Then looked him up and down to check so I had remembered everything.

I had put a folded towel to protect his head from banging into the floor at every twitch. The top buttons in his nice shirt, the one he'd been so excited about getting for our New Year's Eve-celebrations were unbuttoned. He was on his side so he wouldn't choke if he threw up. Keith kept an eye on the clock.

"How long's it been?"

"Two minutes and twenty eight seconds."

Of course we knew since long that Lucas did have Epilepsy. But still, if it did last for more than five minutes doctor's orders were to call for an ambulance. And even though it felt as at least three times that had passed since I heard that bang when he fell in the bathroom, it was only half.

"It's never lasted for so long before."

As on a given signal, just as I didn't know whether I was about to cry or not. Lucas's body stopped shaking and his whole body slumped lax against the bathroom floor.

"Come on." I took Lucas's shoulder on one side and Keith got on the other. With quite a bit of work from us both (it was strange how a body of a boy only seven years old could get so heavy when he was lax like this) we moved him towards the toilet bowl and I, as his mum and having been part of this before could have counted down until the very second he started heaving and choking.

"It's okay Lucas." He was barely conscious by now. But when he was it wouldn't be quite as scary if I stayed calm and comforted him. "It's okay." I steadied my grip with one hand and started rubbing his back with the other. "Sch, sch, sch. Just relax. It's gonna be okay."

Just like every little piece of a seizure the throwing up seemed to last forever. Before it finally ended with a few, weak coughs before Lucas turned his head towards me and his eyes fluttered open.

"Wha' 'abe'?"

"You had a seizure honey. But you're okay now."

Lucas was still panting. It wasn't strange after all. But I moved him closer to the toilet bowl again just in case. And for a few minutes we just sat there. I, Lucas in my arms and Keith right behind us both. Ready to do anything if he was needed and Lucas still panting. He only kept doing just that. Then slowly, while I thought I'd drop him all of a sudden because of my arms cramping. His breaths slowed down and he moved in my arms.

"Is it still New Year's Eve?"

"Yes Luke." I nodded and gently supported his back while he sunk back towards the floor and the towel he laid his head back towards. "It's still New Year's Eve. For how long Keith?" Keith checked his watch.

"Half an hour. Here." Keith handed me a small cloth and I carefully used it to wipe Lucas's mouth. "How are you feeling buddy?"

Lucas only glared up on Keith. I couldn't blame him. Keith kept on asking that after every time Lucas had a seizure. And each and every time the answer was clear without Lucas having to say a single word.

"I wet my pants." Lucas looked down and fingered with the fabric of the front of his jeans whimpering out his words. "My brand new, handsome pants." A big tear rolled down Lucas's cheek. "I'm sorry mum. I didn't mean to."

"Oh. Don't worry about it Luke. It's not your fault. I'll put them in the laundry right away so the stain doesn't stick to the fabric. Tell you what. Maybe you can wear them and I and Keith can wear our nice clothes some other day and celebrate then. Now, you get out of those and clean off and then I'll get a pyjamas for you?"

"A pyjamas?" That startled Lucas and new tears rolled down his cheeks. "But I don't want to miss midnight mum." Lucas weakly tried to push me away when I tried to help him up. "I look forward all year to midnight on New Year's eve. Please mum. It's only a little while left. Please…" Lucas pouted, and he did already have tears in his eyes. "Please. Can't I just stay up until midnight? Pretty please?"

"Do you know what?" Keith suddenly got up. "I have an idea. You. Get out of those clothes and into a pyjamas. You." He looked up at me. "Get out of those nice clothes and into a pyjamas. And then wait here. You get washed off and everything and I will get out of these nice clothes and into a pyjamas. And then I'm going to set a surprise ready for the both of you. Be right back."

I and Lucas only looked to each other. He looked about as confused as I felt. But things still needed to be done and meanwhile I started unbuttoning the buttons of his shirt. Lucas was too weak to help out. And the way he looked up at me, with pain in his eyes. Was breaking my heart.

We could hear Keith doing something out in the kitchen and then footsteps leading to Lucas's bedroom. What was he doing? Confused for a bit, but Lucas also looked exhausted and was obviously nauseas and in pain so I decided that enough was enough and to get him into bed as soon as possible.

"Come on." I half lifted, half supported Lucas to get into the shower and handed him the showerhead before I turned the water on and waited for the water to heat up. "Is that temperature good?" Lucas shook his head.

"No mum. Colder. I'm so warm."

I ran a hand over his forehead. Maybe he had a temperature and that had triggered the seizure- no. He didn't feel warm. Clammy though, and sweaty. I reached and turned the shower on colder water.

"This is good."

"I'll just go put these in the laundry and get each pyjamas for us. I'll be right back."

The thought flashed by when I stood up and left the bathroom. What if he had another seizure while I was gone? I would be gone and Keith was still working on… whatever he was planning this time. I had tried to keep Lucas away from stories and memories about people who had died from drowning when having a seizure in a bathtub.

I shook my head and forced the images of what could meet me when I came back into the bathroom away. Lucas had never had a seizure straight after one other. And even if he did, I was so close I could hear if he knocked towards the wall or the floor and get to him and pull him away from the water quickly. Besides, I couldn't imagine a shower was as dangerous to start seeing in as a bathtub. If Lucas ended up on his back or on his side it would mean no harm.

At least that's what I told myself while I, as quickly as I could changed from a dress into the first pyjamas I could find and then went into Lucas's room to find one for him.

"Cookie monster." Keith smirked at my one-piece pyjamas printed with the cookie monster from Sesame Street when I came out of Lucas's room holding onto a pyjamas for him. "Really?"

"Lucas got it for me for Christmas. I can't not wear it."

"I know. I helped him pay for it." Keith kept on smirking and chuckled. "I just never thought you'd wear it. I tried telling him. Discreetly of course. But Lucas had made up his mind he was going to get it for you."

"And I like it."

"Of course you do."

I couldn't help but smile. Sometimes during these, only a normal day things that at these moments seemed terrible. One would just have to find something to smile about in the smallest of things, so if it was a pyjamas printed like the Cookie Monster and teasing each other. Then that would have to be it.

"I love everything Lucas gives me. Don't you know that?"

"That's true."

"Come here then." I helped Lucas out of the shower and to sit up on the toilet lid. "I got your favorites." I held up his bananas in pyjamas- pyjamas. "But I still don't know what Keith is trying to make…. Arms up." Lucas weakly held his arms up and I pulled the pyjama shirt on him. "Good boy. But we'll just have to trust him. You know Keith always comes up with the best ideas. And he always wants what would make you and me feel better doesn't he?"

"That he does. And that he wants to do."

Suddenly, without me having heard him come up Keith was in the doorway. With a smile on his lips he came inside the bathroom and helped Lucas to get up.

"And, come here." With me and Keith as support on either side Lucas got onto his feet and slowly, but steadily out from the bathroom and towards his bedroom. "There you go. One step at a time." And each of them were heavy and if he hadn't supported on us he had fallen with one. "We're almost there now and…"

"Ta-da." Coming into Lucas's bedroom Keith held out one of his arms and introduced to us- the way he had moved everything necessary from the living room to Lucas's room and around his bed stood a big plate with sandwiches, glasses with fruit smoothies, each chair for me and Keith- and on Lucas's bed. A throne of God knows how many pillows.

"Oh Keith."

I was in loss of words, a simple thanks would have been enough but… And seeing the smile on Lucas's lips was the best thing of all.

"Do you feel like joining me in a simple but very tasteful meal?"

The thought about having to eat had the smile on Lucas's lips fading and tears started rising back in his eyes while he grabbed tightly onto me and let go of Keith.

"What's wrong bud?" Keith kneeled to reach Lucas's height. "Did I do something wrong?"

"No." Lucas whimpered. "I just don't feel very hungry." He drew a deep breath and I could tell he was trying to pull himself together. "Can I have a popsicle mum? I'm sorry. But it's just the only thing I feel like eating right now."

"Of course." I gently helped Lucas up on the bed and lay down in the middle of all of those pillows and draped his covers over him. "Can you go get one Keith? They're in the freezer." Keith nodded and hurried away. "Is there anything else I can do for you honey?"

"Can you come and sit here." Lucas patted next to all the pillows on his bed. "Or would you rather sit on that chair?"

I didn't let wait for it. I crawled over the bed, careful not to touch Lucas or push him over and cause him more pain in his aching limbs. Then sat down, leaned back against the headboard and laid my arm around Lucas's shoulders.

"Like that?"

"Like that." Lucas leaned against me. "I'm sorry mum."

"Sorry?" I snorted. "For what? For the seizures? They're not your fault. And you know what the doctor say. They might go away so to the point you'll never have one again within just a couple of years."

"Right now it does feel like it's going to last forever and it's never going to go away. A couple of years is a long time. I wish no one would ever have a seizure again" Lucas sniveled and looked to Keith when he came back and handed Lucas his Popsicle. "How far is it left to midnight now?"

"Seven minutes." Lucas was still on the verge of tears and buried his face in the fabric of my pyjamas. "Hey, I can see you're tired. You just go to sleep now. We can celebrate some other day. When you're feeling better."

"No I want to be up 'til midnight." Lucas whimpered, and as if to show he wasn't saying anymore took the Popsicle in his mouth while I ran my hand over his forehead again. He leaned his head against my shoulder and kept on sucking on the Popsicle. But in his eyes I could still see how much he was hurting and how much he hated this.

"Five minutes…"

Keith counted down…

"Four minutes…"

Lucas only kept on sucking on his Popsicle.

"Three minutes…"

"No thank you Keith." I held up my palm when Keith handed me a sandwich. "I'm not very hungry. But save them and we can all have each in the morning."

"Two minutes."

Lucas seemed to drift off more and more. He still had the Popsicle in his mouth but was leaning heavily against me and his eyes were closed for longer and longer for each time he blinked.

"One minute."

As if to have made up his mind he couldn't fall asleep so close to midnight Lucas used his fingers to push up his eyelids.

"Thirty seconds."

His eyes only teared from having kept open to long and they fell closed again.

"TEN…" Keith shouted all of a sudden. "NINE." I held a finger to my lips and Lucas threw his hands over his ears and whimpered in pain. "Eight." Keith lowered his voice into almost a whisper again. "Seven, six…"

Lucas started counting along. Even though his voice coming out as nothing else as hoarse croaks and his eyes having closed. I couldn't help but smile at my two boys and the way Keith smiled in distress still counting down the seconds with Lucas.

"Five, four, three, two, one. Go." Keith put his arms in the air and cheered quietly. "Happy new year buddy. Time for bed."

Lucas smiled weakly, but moaned when he heard firework from outside. There was a pair of earmuffs in the drawer of his bedside table for times like these so I got them and pulled them over his head.

Lucas didn't protest this time. I highly doubted he'd have been able to protest if he had wanted to. He seemed to be fading off and while his eyes were closing on their own and he was about to drop the plastic handle to his Popsicle that only barely laid towards his lips.

"It's the only thing he'll eat after a seizure." I took the Popsicle from his hand and laid it on the bedside table. "During a seizure, the jaws and teeth end up pressing hard towards each other and he bites his tongue. I think the cold helps towards the pain. Can you lift him up and I'll sort out the bed. It looks like you used our pillows too and we might need them." Keith nodded and as if he was made of feathers, easily lifted Lucas up into his arms and stepped away from the bed. "Thank you."

"Anytime."

It was in these times I was the most relieved that after I and Lucas weren't all alone in the world. Even though both I and Keith could do only small things to make sure Lucas was comfortable and none of us could make the seizures go away. At least I didn't have to push him back and forth over the bed to get him off the pillows and get them away. Then God knows how many times before the covers were over him and everything seemed right. And then again to the middle of the bed so he wouldn't fall down from the bed in the middle of the night. Now it just seemed so simple that Keith could just lift him up and I could throw the pillows that weren't needed on the floor, move up his own pillows towards the headboard and then Lucas could be back on the bed.

"What do you think triggered it? Was it the excitement or staying up all night or…"

"The excitement, the staying up all night, the junk food and candy. I think there were a lot of triggers. Maybe that was why it lasted for so long." I stepped to the side and Keith carefully laid Lucas down on the bed again while I spread the covers back over him. "I should have seen it coming. But I just… I just couldn't help but to… I just saw him so excited and… Who would I have been to stop him? I just couldn't have done something like that. So I just… I guess I just forgot."

"I forgot about it too Karen." Keith started taking the food he had brought in here from the kitchen and put it on a trey. "But don't worry about it. Luke will be as good as new in the morning. This isn't your fault. And it doesn't in any way make you a bad person or a bad parent. We're all doing our best and you're the best that Lucas could have ever had."

Sometimes I swore Keith could read my mind. A bad person and a bad parent was exactly everything I felt like. And how I could not be when I had just… when I had just forgotten like that.

"You know. Humans have done great things. Different cures for all kinds of illnesses. We have been to outer space and to the moon. Electricity, mobile phones, TV and all kinds of things…" I hesitated for a moment and sat back down on the bed. "…Yet they can't give my son a medicine that will take these terrible seizures away from him."

I finally changed what I was talking about to keep the feeling of guilt away. Then tenderly ran my finger over the marks still left of the bruise he had gotten from the last seizure. When he had been in the kitchen and fallen head first into a chair.

"And every time I see him, shaking like that. And then in so much pain afterwards. I always promise myself. That if I'm ever put in a spot where I can choose. This continuing. Or that I'd be able to take the seizures from him and have them myself. I would choose the latter within a second."

Keith smiled sadly at me. What was there he could say anyway? For just a minute I had just hoped that he, out of all people could say something to just bring me some peace enough for me to sleep through the night. Without waking up of nightmares were my son had a seizure, or was hurt in any other way in one way after the other.

"Here." Keith handed me one of the glasses with smoothies I had made and that he had taken in here. "You need something too." He took one glass himself. "Let's make a toast. For…. For… for… I don't know. Have you got anything?"

"I don't know." I rubbed Lucas's shoulder, he just moaned in his sleep and turned his head without waking up. "I guess I'm just sick and tired of seizures and all what else last year brought with it so…" I held up my glass and nodded to Keith. "To a happy and seizure- free new year."

"For a happy and seizure free new year sounds good to me." He hit his glass slightly towards mine. "And a year that will be its very best if we get to spend it together. You and I, and Lucas." Keith suddenly yawned and then drank a few sips from his glass. "And for a good night's sleep." He held his glass up again. "For you too Karen." He stood up and took the serving tray he had gotten the sandwiches and glasses here with. "Have a good night."

I didn't say anything while Keith yawned again and left the room. Only looked down on my sleeping child and once again tenderly ran a finger over the rests of the bruise he had gotten the last time he had a seizure. Then took his hand and turned it to see the rests of the burn he had gotten when he had had a seizure trying to cook a meal for me and Keith.

"It's a new year honey." I tried to ignore what I was seeing, held my hair back and kissed his forehead. Then laid down next to him. "Let's do what we can to make it happy and seizure-free."

 **Well. That's that. I hope you liked that for a New-year's-eve- oneshot. I do know all OTH episodes have titles that are song titles. The title is from the song sick and tired by Anastacia. That has nothing to do with the story but the title fit.**

 **English is not my first language. If you notice any grammar, spelling or anything else that is wrong. Please tell me in a review or a PM and I'll make sure it's better next time I use it.**

 **Random fact (I leave at least one at the end of every chapter I put up)**

Well, the thing is. I do have Epilepsy myself (sadly, the kind that doesn't go away with time, but luckily the kind that can be controlled with medicines) And I've been trying to raise awareness as much as I can since I was diagnosed about two and a half years ago. And this November I started a fundraiser- which didn't go exactly as I had hoped. And neither has anything else I have tried. So by the beginning of December a few weeks ago I just felt like I was done. Right then, when someone told me I might just needed a break to then start over again I just wanted to shout her in the face and tell her nobody cares anyway.

But here we are today. And I have written this. You might not have thought about it because I tried to get it into the story- the first aid during a seizure is mentioned, so is that part about medicines not helping while humans have done so many incredible things. But I guess this is kind of my way of showing that I am not giving up.

So here's for a 2018 everybody. With International Epilepsy awareness day (Second Monday of February) Purple day (March the 26th) the third anniversary of the day I was diagnosed (August the tenth) And thirty days of Epilepsy awareness month (November.) And I am just getting started.

 **Happy new year.**


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